This is a letter from a Dominican father from near the front line of the war. it’s harrowing but uplifting.

Dear Sisters, Dear Brothers,

After this morning’s Mass, I asked the Sisters of the Missionaries of Charity of Mother Teresa of Calcutta about how they look to the future. “I have thought about this several times,” says Sister Immaculata. – The only answer that comes to me is to trust in the Lord God every day and do what we can. To love Him and to love our neighbour. And to live. He knows better what lies ahead and what is good for us.”

We have lived to see the second anniversary of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, although actually I should write that it is now the tenth year of the war.

It all started in 2014 with the Russian occupation of Crimea and fighting in the Donbass. A few months before that, the Revolution of Dignity erupted, overthrowing President Viktor Yanukovych. Millions of Ukrainians demonstrated that they were tying their future to a free and democratic Europe. Exactly 10 years ago, more than 100 people were brutally gunned down in the streets adjacent to Kiev’s Independence Square.

The war found her at the airport in Warsaw. The Dominican Missionaries of Jesus and Mary have a convent in Fastov, where Sister Augustine lives and ministers. “The war broke out exactly on the day I was due to return to Ukraine after a short stay in Poland. I was already past passport clearance when Father Misha from Fastov called me and said that Sister would not be coming back because all flights were cancelled.” She returned two weeks later, at the first opportunity with a humanitarian aid convoy.  “Since you are a sister and the Lord God puts you among these people, he puts you not only when things are good, but also when things are bad, when things are wrong. When they need you.” “At the beginning of the war I made the decision that I would stay”. – states Sister Damiana from the same Dominican community. “Many people appreciate the presence. They know they can come to us, call us, talk to us. I have become even more connected to people in their suffering”.

“I am convinced that the Lord God very much wants me to be here”. – Sister Augustine adds. Both nuns are from Poland and have been connected to Ukraine for many years. “I feel that I am at home here and have inner peace.

It is also important to me that my family supports me.

Of course, they would prefer me to be in Poland, but at the same time they understand my vocation. I think that as a sister I could not be outside of Ukraine right now.

That would be against the vocation and what God intended”. After a moment of silence, she adds, “It would be a bit of a … running away for me.”

For Father Thomas, who has been living in Fastov for several months and previously ministered in Lviv, the war period is a time of truth. “No one requires me to play the brave hero. I’m scared, then I go to the shelter. I’ve had enough, then I leave. Especially the second year of the war, it’s a time when there’s no longer anything to pretend and you have to be yourself to get on with life. This situation can go on for a long time, so in order to save normality, you have to be a normal person, behave and react normally.” Father Thomas compares the situation Ukraine finds itself  to a marathon.

“There are fewer and fewer big, spectacular events and the grey everyday life of war time is beginning to dominate.” He emphasises how important it is to be able to enjoy simple, ordinary things. He himself lives this way. “The things we enjoy, which includes music and entertainment, help us to survive. And that’s worth investing in.”

Ms Natalia, who, together with her elderly parents, lived through the first months of the war in Russian-occupied territory, thinks the same way. When they managed to escape from the Bucza area, they lived for a while in our Kiev monastery. “I have always been happy about small, simple things, like the fact that a rose has grown somewhere, or a cat has hunted a mouse. Now it is even more powerful. My perception of reality has changed. I try to consciously keep to the rituals of everyday life. To drink coffee in the morning, to pray, to read an excerpt from the Gospel. Although I now earn much less than I did before the war, I spend money on tasty food. This is an attribute of normal life for me.

“We arrange to talk at the monastery early on Sunday morning. Her train arrives at dawn, as Ms Natalia started her studies at the Catholic University in Lviv last year. “I have started another course of study, although I don’t know if I will live to finish it,” she states with a smile when I ask her about her future plans. Most of my interviewees plan with great reserve. We meet Ms Vira at the San Angelo café in the St. Martin’s House in Fastov.

 “I live one day at a time, even though I try to look forward with hope and plan things. I know I have to do the best I can each day. Before, I used to plan tasks for the year. Now every single day feels like a lifetime”.  The interviewer notices my surprise at the words spoken:

“I am not waiting to win”. I ask what this means. “I am not waiting, because I know that every day of the war, is the life of our military men and women.

Of course, I want it very much, but not at any cost”. I hear a similar statement from Ms Natalia: “In the autumn of 2022, we were very happy when our military liberated Kharkiv and Kherson.

But at that time there was no mention in the media at what price it was done, how many people died. That is why, among my friends, nobody talks about a quick victory anymore. Of course, we want victory, but it’s not about making it quick, but rather with fewer casualties.

Jan and his wife Natalia are lay Dominicans. When the war started Jan volunteered for the army. He has been at the front ever since. In two years, he has only managed to visit Lvov twice and meet up with his wife and little son Joseph. “We miss each other. It’s good that there is communication, and we can keep in touch.” When we spoke on the phone a few days ago, Janek was in the vicinity of Avdiyivka in the Donbass. He said that the situation was dire and that it was unlikely that the Ukrainian army would be able to maintain control of that city. On Saturday evening I received a message from Father Wojciech from Khmelnitsky:

“Janek has just written me that the Russians have captured Avdiivka, but his brigade has been deported, also praise be to God!”. However, we are not talking about military matters, but about faith. “I miss confession and the Eucharist very much.

I see from myself that when you persist for a long time in a state of sin and do not have access to the sacraments, especially confession, you become worse and worse.” Although there are more and more chaplains in the Ukrainian army, there are still not enough. “There is Pokrovsk not far away,” – Jan says. “There was a priest there, so once every two months you could pop out to confess and attend Mass. The priest even celebrated the Eucharist for one person.”

We talk to the Dominican friars about our pastoral ministry.

“I believe that my job as a priest is to keep people’s spirits up,” says Father Thomas. “Jesus is always the hope and the victor.

I don’t feel I am a volunteer and I don’t see myself in that role. My job is to be a priest and support people from the pulpit and in life. Perseverance is what it is all about now. Jesus said: whoever perseveres to the end will be saved.” Originally from Ukraine, Fathers Igor and Oleksandr are involved in the pastoral care of students. “We are far from the front line and people in Khmelnitsky try to live ordinary, everyday lives. They don’t talk about the war so much,” Father Igor says. “It reminds me of the situation in Donetsk, where I come from, between 2014 and 2022. In the city, people were living a relatively normal life and a dozen kilometres away there was fighting, bombs exploding, soldiers shooting at each other. In the long term, it is hard for people to talk about the war, so they don’t take up the topic very often and run away from it into conversations about everyday things.

Why? Because it is difficult. The psyche can’t bear to think about it for too long. I can say that the topic of war is becoming less and less popular”.

Father Oleksandr from Kiev shares a similar observation: “Talking about war topics in a group is rare. If anything, it is more during individual meetings. Although that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t sit in young people. They think about it, they experience the whole situation very strongly, especially boys and young men.” Father Oleksandr also draws attention to the problem of building lasting relationships: “It is more difficult for them during the war to plan a future together, to think about marriage. Young men, because of the fact that they know they can go to war at any time, are afraid to take a risk and enter into a lasting relationship, to have children.” Oleksandr also regularly visits the hospital where military men are treated: “Until the war is over, I am not ready to have another child,” he recounts a conversation with one of his patients. “And if something happens to me, how will my wife manage alone with two small children?”

Mrs Swieta has just returned from a short rest in Poland. She was together with a group of people from Kiev, with whom she works in an NGO. “My friend lived for those days with her son near the train station. During the day, the passage of the train evoked euphoria and curiosity in the several-year-old boy. At night, he was frightened. The sound of trains woke him up. He feared it was rocket attacks and bomb explosions again”.

Many of us automatically associate the noise of hand dryers turning on in public toilets with the howling of sirens announcing a bomb alert.

 Mrs Swieta tells us that at a rehabilitation centre near Lviv, they had to be dismantled because the residents couldn’t cope with the sounds. Father Oleksandr recently roused himself in the middle of the night to move from his bed to a safer place. It wasn’t until he looked at his phone that he realised there was no attack. It was simply that something in the monastery or outside the window had fallen, making a familiar sound, reminiscent of a rocket explosion. “At the beginning of the war I could concentrate on my work during the alarms. Now I can’t,” – says Ms Natalia. “We are not used to it.

We experienced a great trauma and now we relive the retraumatisation every time.” She adds, “I have noticed that I am afraid of the military.

I understand that they are our soldiers, that they are fighting for us, but it doesn’t come through.” Is it perhaps the memory of what you experienced during the occupation of Kiev? – I ask. “Certainly. It doesn’t come through, although I am working on it and I understand everything, but whenever I see them, there is a reflex in me to hide somewhere.”

“I feel most sorry for the children. Now they don’t cry anymore when they go down to the shelter, but the trauma remains,” Sister Damiana says of her ministry at the Fastow kindergarten. “When we pray at school with the children, they give thanks that they could come to lessons. They ask for peace.

The fathers of several of them died in the war, so the children pray for their mothers for the strength to survive. Whoever has a parent at the front, they pray that they can talk to them every day,” adds Sister Augustine. “There are times when a lesson starts, and a child comes to you saying that they haven’t had contact with their mum who is on the front since yesterday. You have to hug and comfort that child.”

Have we had enough of this war? – I ask my interviewees. “It seems to me that we stereotype that society is tired of war. Everyone in Ukraine experiences PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) to some degree. People are simply living the war,” responds Ms Wira.

“Everyone has already made a decision in some way, regarding the situation they are in. If people go abroad, they know they are going for a long time or forever. It’s a conscious choice, not a state like it was at the beginning of the war, when we were completely unaware of what awaited us.”  Is that why so many people stayed in the country, or returned to Ukraine in mid-2022? – I ask. “Because this is where our home is. It never occurred to me to leave Ukraine, although when at the beginning of the war Russian troops were 13 km. from Fastov, it was a crisis moment for me. But it passed and I managed to overcome it’. My interviewee is the administrator of the refugee house that the Dominican Centre of St. Martin de Porres runs in Fastov.

On a daily basis, she meets people who have had to leave their homes. “We don’t fully realise what it means to become homeless. This concept until recently in our country applied mainly to people living on the street or suffering from various dependencies and serious problems. Now the profound experience of homelessness, with all its darkness and emptiness, is experienced by a great many people who have lost their homes and have nowhere to return to. There is a great fear of rejection in the people we help. They are afraid that they will have nowhere to go. They are very deeply lonely and homeless. It’s a difficult time, and we want to help them stand on their own two feet. Many of them are afraid to look to the future.”

Dear Sisters, Dear Brothers,

today’s letter from Kiev, written on the eve of the second anniversary of the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine, is not only much longer, but also somewhat different from the 40 previous letters I have written over the past two years. I would like to thank not only my interviewees, who candidly shared their experience of living in a country engulfed by war, but also the Sisters and Brothers in the Dominican Order and our colleagues, friends and volunteers for sharing the joy and pain of this time as we walk together, sometimes tired and uncertain. I am deeply convinced that God has chosen each and every one of us to accompany Him at this very time and in this particular place.

I also have no doubt that Divine Providence has placed beside us so many good and sensitive people who, although they live sometimes very far from Kiev and Ukraine and speak completely different languages, are so close to us and understand us so much. Thank you to the Dominican Family and all the people who pray for us and with us, help us, support us, and sometimes cry and rejoice with us.

With fraternal greetings and a constant request for prayer,

Jaroslaw Krawiec OP

Kiev, 20 February 2024